1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a silver halide color photographic light-sensitive material and, more particularly, to a silver halide color photographic light-sensitive material in which sharpness, color reproduction, and storage stability are improved, and dye stability after development is significantly improved, by using a combination of a pyrazoloazoletype compound excellent in storage stability and hue and a novel acylacetamide-type yellow coupler.
2. Description of the Related Art
As a silver halide color photographic light-sensitive material, a material is generally used which contains three types of color couplers which couple with the oxidized form of an aromatic primary amine-based color developing agent to form three colors of yellow, magenta, and cyan.
As the yellow coupler, an acylacetamide coupler represented by a benzoylacetanilide coupler or a pivaloylacetanilide coupler is generally used. The benzolyacetamide-type coupler generally has a high coupling activity with an aromatic primary amine developing agent during development and can form a yellow dye having a large molecular absorptivity coefficient. However, the benzoylacetamide-type coupler is low in dye stability when stored in a dark place. The pivaloylacetamide-type coupler, on the other hand, has a high dye stability but is low in coupling reactivity during development and has only a small molecular absorptivity coefficient. To obtain a sufficient dye density, therefore, a large amount of color-forming couplers must be used, resulting in disadvantages in both image quality and cost.
Studies have been made on an acyl group of the acylacetamide-type yellow coupler, and, for example, U.S. Pat. No. Re 27,848 discloses couplers having a 7,7-dimethylnorbornane-1-carbonyl group or a 1-methylcyclohexane-1-carbonyl group as a modification of a pivaloyl group. These couplers, however, are low in coupling activity and can produce only dyes having small molecular absorptivity coefficients; i.e., these couplers are not sufficiently satisfactory.
JP-A-47-26133 ("JP-A" means Published Unexamined Japanese Patent Application) discloses couplers having a cyclopropane-1-carbonyl group or a cyclohexane-1-carbonyl group. However, these couplers are still unsatisfactory because dyes produced by these couplers are low in stability and the couplers are poor in spectral absorption characteristics.
For this reason, a demand has arisen for a yellow coupler having good color forming properties (a high coupling reactivity of the coupler and a large molecular absorptivity coefficient of the produced dye) and a high dye stability and also having excellent absorption characteristics in which the edge of spectral absorption on the long-wavelength side is cut sharply and an amount of unnecessary absorption in a green region is small.
A silver halide color photographic light-sensitive material, on the other hand, is required to have a high sharpness, a good color reproduction, and a high storage stability and is also required to have a high dye stability after development. Especially in recent years, it has become necessary to further improve the image quality with decreases in format and size. However, the above requirements cannot be satisfactorily met only by improving the sharpness by decreasing the thickness of layers by using couplers having good color forming properties to reduce the amount of couplers or high-boiling organic solvents, or only by improving the saturation of colors without increasing the amount of couplers (without degrading the sharpness) by using couplers having good color forming properties.
The use of development inhibitor-releasing compounds (DIR compounds) for the purpose of improving the photographic performance, such as sharpness and color reproduction, is proposed in, e.g., JP-A-2-154256, JP-A-1-105947, JP-A-63-210927, JP-A-62-228151, JP-A-62-166334, JP-A-61-286852, JP-A-53-15136, and JP-A-50-36125. Since, however, these patents do not use the compounds of the present invention, the results obtained by these patents are unsatisfactory in color reproduction and poor in dye stability after development. Magenta-forming pyrazoloazole-type compounds which are chemically stable and capable of improving color reproduction are disclosed in, e.g., JP-A-61-28947, JP-A-62-24252, and JP-A-3-142447. However, these couplers are still unsatisfactory in sharpness when used singly and, when used in combination with conventional yellow couplers, cannot satisfactorily meet the requirements in color reproduction and dye stability.